Fighting Back
The New York Times and Washington Post have been threatened with prosecution for their articles on the illegal NSA domestic spying program and secret CIA prisons in Europe, respectively. The intent of the regime, of course, is to scare journalists and their employers off of any such stories. Today, the NY Times responded to that threat with a guest opinion piece by Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago.
... the Bush administration and its advocates, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have spoken of prosecuting The Washington Post and The New York Times for publishing Pulitzer Prize-winning exposés of the administration's secret prisons in Eastern Europe and secret National Security Agency surveillance of Americans.
Specifically, the president and some of his supporters say reporters and publishers have violated a provision of the 1917 Espionage Act...
But for at least three reasons, such threats are largely empty. First, the provision was never intended to be used against the press. When the Espionage Act was proposed by President Woodrow Wilson, it included a section that would expressly have made it a crime for the press to publish information that the president had declared to be "of such character that it is or might be useful to the enemy." Congress overwhelmingly rejected that proposal, with members of both parties characterizing it as "un-American" and "an instrument of tyranny."
Second, if the 1917 act were meant to apply to journalists, it would unquestionably violate the First Amendment.
Third, if Congress today enacted legislation that incorporated the requirements of the First Amendment, it could not apply to articles like those published by The Times and The Post. Such a statute would have to be limited to articles that, first, do not disclose information of legitimate and important public interest and, second, pose a clear and present danger.
...revelations like those in The Times and Post revealed significant government wrongdoing and therefore are essential to effective self-governance; they are at the very core of the First Amendment. [Emphasis added]
Professor Stone quite correctly punctures the government bluster about such prosecutions and does so the way lawyers are supposed to: by examining the law in question and where it fits in the Constitutional frame of things. Classifying something as "secret" does not in and of itself mean it is forever unexaminable by the press or by the citizenry, a point this regime conveniently overlooks. His concluding paragraph damns such efforts by the government:
Although the threats of the White House are largely bluster, they must nonetheless be taken seriously. Not because newspapers are really in danger of being prosecuted, but because such intimidation is the latest step in this administration's relentless campaign to control the press and keep the American people in the dark. [Emphasis added]
Exactly so.
... the Bush administration and its advocates, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have spoken of prosecuting The Washington Post and The New York Times for publishing Pulitzer Prize-winning exposés of the administration's secret prisons in Eastern Europe and secret National Security Agency surveillance of Americans.
Specifically, the president and some of his supporters say reporters and publishers have violated a provision of the 1917 Espionage Act...
But for at least three reasons, such threats are largely empty. First, the provision was never intended to be used against the press. When the Espionage Act was proposed by President Woodrow Wilson, it included a section that would expressly have made it a crime for the press to publish information that the president had declared to be "of such character that it is or might be useful to the enemy." Congress overwhelmingly rejected that proposal, with members of both parties characterizing it as "un-American" and "an instrument of tyranny."
Second, if the 1917 act were meant to apply to journalists, it would unquestionably violate the First Amendment.
Third, if Congress today enacted legislation that incorporated the requirements of the First Amendment, it could not apply to articles like those published by The Times and The Post. Such a statute would have to be limited to articles that, first, do not disclose information of legitimate and important public interest and, second, pose a clear and present danger.
...revelations like those in The Times and Post revealed significant government wrongdoing and therefore are essential to effective self-governance; they are at the very core of the First Amendment. [Emphasis added]
Professor Stone quite correctly punctures the government bluster about such prosecutions and does so the way lawyers are supposed to: by examining the law in question and where it fits in the Constitutional frame of things. Classifying something as "secret" does not in and of itself mean it is forever unexaminable by the press or by the citizenry, a point this regime conveniently overlooks. His concluding paragraph damns such efforts by the government:
Although the threats of the White House are largely bluster, they must nonetheless be taken seriously. Not because newspapers are really in danger of being prosecuted, but because such intimidation is the latest step in this administration's relentless campaign to control the press and keep the American people in the dark. [Emphasis added]
Exactly so.
posted by Diane at 3:54 AM
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